1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to equipment for bunching and securing cut produce, and more particularly, to equipment which allows the bunching, securing, and packing of cut produce to be performed in the field.
2. Description of the Background Art
Commercial agriculture has traditionally relied on harvesting and collection of produce in the field and packaging of the produce at a central packaging facility for shipment to market. While this approach is certainly workable, it suffers from a number of disadvantages including increased exposure of the produce to mechanical damage resulting from an excessive number of handling operations, and the high capital and operating costs associated with maintaining such central packaging facilities.
In order to improve both the quality of the produce and the economics of the operation, there has been a trend in recent years toward the field packing of cut produce. Such field packing generally relies on mobile packaging equipment which follows or is integrated with the harvesting equipment. Under the best circumstances, the produce is removed from the field and packaged into appropriate containers for shipment to market, and the need for a central packaging facility is entirely eliminated.
Of particular interest to the present invention are field packing systems developed for broccoli. A particular system has been developed by Salinas Valley Engineering and Manufacturing, Inc., Salinas, Calif., which system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,470,241. The system provides for a mobile packing unit having a fixed sorting table mounted on one end. Workers on foot cut the broccoli from the ground and throw it up onto the sorting table as the packer follows them. Additional workers sit behind the sorting table and have fixed banding frames for placing rubber bands around broccoli bunches which they put together. The banding frames include spreadable fingers, and the workers must first manually place the band around the fingers when they are collapsed together. After placing the rubber band, the pins are automatically spread on a set time schedule so that they spread apart, opening the rubber band. The broccoli bunch is then manually inserted into the opened rubber band, and the spreader pins are collapsed when the worker manually activates a release switch. The workers must then pull the broccoli from the banding frame and turn around and place the broccoli in a carton or on a conveyor which transports the bunch rearward, where it is placed in a carton.
While this system is an improvement over central packing of broccoli, it suffers from a number of disadvantages. Particularly, the banding operation performed by the workers on the mobile packer is highly inefficient, requiring the seven separate acts described above. Because of this inefficiency, it is found that each worker can band at most from 5 to 10 broccoli bunches per minute on the average. Such inefficiency decreases both the cost of harvesting and the time required for harvesting.
It would thus be desirable to provide an improved mobile packing system for broccoli and other cut produce. It would be particularly desirable to provide such a packing system capable of reducing the number of manual operations required for banding each bunch of produce.